I guess there’s no reason to suspect that this won’t get bogged down in development hell like those that came before it. But nevertheless, Warner Bros. has appointed Zach Snyder as the director on the current attempt to make Watchmen in to a movie.. Snyder is currently directing the adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300 for Warner Bros. as well. He’s probably best known for the mostly enjoyable remake of Dawn of the Dead.
Is it wrong to hope this film never comes to pass? I just don’t think it needs to exist, as I don’t think the method of making movies we currently use can support this story without taking everything out that made it great. This story works because it is in comic book form. That’s the point of the story. It’s a masterpiece of comic book art. It loses a lot of its significance when it ceases to be a comic book. This is as purist as I get, but I just don’t think this can be done correctly. Also, there has been a remarkable ability to turn the best comics ever made into mediocre films, and I just don’t think they can avoid doing it one more time.
That all being said, how about 300? That could be pretty badass!
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I can’t help but feel bad for David Hayter, the man worked his ass off on the screenplay, only to have it be dumped. Even Moore said the Hayter script was the best adaptation of the material. I mean if it’s going to be done (I don’t want to it to be either) do it right.
And Daivd Hayter is Solid Snake’s voice actor. badass.
Why I don’t feel bad for Hayter:
X-Men Residuals.
Still, I would maintain that there really isn’t a way to do this movie right. Then again, I would have said that about the Lord of the Rings, so what do I know?
Why is it that every time a project like Watchmen gets passed on to someone else, they feel compelled to write a whole new script? I sort of get it on films like Spider-Man, where you’re updating a character’s story to reflect your own sensibilities as a director/producer, but Watchmen is a self-contained story with an incredibly detailed universe. Messing with any one of those details could bring the entire thing tumbling down, like what happened to the Ultra television series. They had great source material, but they felt a need to tinker. Tinkering, while an amusing word, is a an activity with a dark, tragic history. Say no to tinkering.
Tinkering worked with Lord of the Rings. Tinkering worked with other film adaptations as well. Not sure how it relates, but both High Fidelity and About a Boy are both excellent movies based on excellent books, and they were tinkered with. Same with Batman, the first Superman movie, X1 and X2, etc.
It all comes down to having a good script and a director who understands the point, and a studio that’s behind that story. Any of those get messed up, and you get X3 (or for those who liked X3, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.)
Lord of the Rings wasn’t tinkered with, though. You can tell by the extended versions that great pains were taken to keep as much of the text as possible without twisting it around to make it fit more conveniently. High Fidelity and About a Boy are hard to judge, but there were fans of the novel who hated that High Fidelity was changed from a British to an American story.
As for the superhero movies you mentioned, I stand by what I said. Spider-Man and other superhero films have to be tinkered with to some degree from director to director because it’s the character that’s more important than the text in those cases. Watchmen is not a superhero movie because it’s not the story of a timeless character… it’s a novel, and when you adapt a novel to the screen, the more you tinker, the greater the chance you end up with a pale shadow that shares little else but a title with the novel you’re adapting.
You can make a hundred Superman movies, and some of them are bound to be crap, and some of them bound to be gold, but with a work like Watchmen, there’s only story that needs to be told and only one chance to tell it right.
Only movies like Hulk get do-overs (whether they need them or not, apparently).
it’s a novel, and when you adapt a novel to the screen, the more you tinker, the greater the chance you end up with a pale shadow that shares little else but a title with the novel you’re adapting.
I agree with you 99 times out of 100, but one of those times where tinkering with the novel leading to a far superior film is A History of Violence. GREAT film. OKAY graphic novel.
Lord of the Rings was totally tinkered with. Arwen was made a bigger character, order of events was changed at the end, the cleansing of the shire was dropped, Tom Bombadil, etc. None of those made it bad in my eyes, but that’s what tinkering is. It’s not wholesale changes.
Another example would be the Shining. Great book. Incredible film. And the two have very little to do with one another.
At this point, I’m not even sure what I’m arguing anymore though. I still don’t want to see this movie made. It is a comic book for a reason. It is a story that must be told in comic book form. It doesn’t make sense as a movie. I just don’t want to see the original diluted by anything. Most of the time I don’t care, but this is one I do care about.
Conor, you make a good point with a History of Violence… I’ve never read it, but we talked a lot about it in one of my classes. In those rare 1% cases, having a director like Cronenberg (or Jackson, to concede Josh’s point about LOTR) makes all the difference in whether it’s tinkering for the sake of tinkering or reworking the story with a clear vision on how to translate it better.
“At this point, I’m not even sure what I’m arguing anymore though. I still don’t want to see this movie made. It is a comic book for a reason. It is a story that must be told in comic book form. It doesn’t make sense as a movie. I just don’t want to see the original diluted by anything. Most of the time I don’t care, but this is one I do care about.”
See, I don’t think we were arguing about the basic point, which is that a work like Watchmen shouldn’t be tinkered with just for the sake of increasing its appeal. The fanboy in me would love to see Watchman done right and create a larger audience for the book, but this guy is clearly not the director who could do it justice. Sometimes a movie makes a great companion to a book, like the Shining without being slavish to the book, (although my wife’s hatred of Kubrick has infected me on recent viewings of it). Watchmen–the essence of Watchmen–can be done as a film. I really believe that. Watchmen adapted as a film would have to be a three part Sin City/LOTR spectacular or a noir cable miniseries. What we’re likely to get, if we get anything at all, will be neither.
Before X3, I was really looking forward to a Watchmen adaptation, but you’ve given me some perspective and the more I remember how horrified I was at the soulless finale to Singer’s X-Men trilogy, the more I agree with you that Watchmen should never be made, not in a climate where X3 gets three and a half stars and becomes a summer blockbuster.
Watchmen adapted as a film would have to be a three part Sin City/LOTR spectacular or a noir cable miniseries.
I believe that I read somewhere that it was pitched to HBO but it was declined by the network. I think I read it in Entertainment Weekly. I agree with you, though – fitting that story into two to two and a half hours will require some SERIOUS chopping. It is probably the most dense twelve issues that I’ve ever read, and I’m still finding new things in it when I reread it. I will take my hat off of them if they can pull it off, I just don’t see how it can be done.